On Feb. 4, HNGN reported that NASA was planning to explore Jupiter's moon Europa for the first time - and to investigate the possibility of alien life. According to Space.com, NASA officials are asking scientists to think of a multitude of ways to hunt alien life. One idea is to capture plumes of water vapor that shoot into space from Europa's southern pole.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope first saw the plumes in December 2012, and scientists believe they will provide the perfect way to grab a sample of liquid ocean water from under the moon's icy surface.
"This is our chance," NASA Science Chief John Grunsfeld said during a Europa plume workshop at the Ames Research Center, according to Space.com. "I just hope we don't miss this opportunity for lack of ideas."
"I don't want to be sitting in my rocking chair 20 years from now and think, 'We should have done something,'" Grunsfeld told Space.com. Grunsfeld is a former NASA astronaut who serviced the Hubble Space Telescope on three missions - one mission, STS-109, with former NASA astronaut Michael J. Massimino. (To read HNGN's exclusive interview with Massimino, click here).
A plume shooting from Europa could potentially reach as high as 125 miles (200 km) above the moon's surface, according to Space.com. Using an aerogel collector (which is described by NASA as "blocks of 1 and 3 cm thick underdense, microporous silica aerogel mounted in modular aluminum cells," the Clipper probe could catch particles from the plumes as it flies through. Aerogel was used in 2006 to collect materials from the Comet Wild 2 during the Stardust mission.
Bringing samples back to Earth for analysis might not be possible, so Clipper would have to contain a biomolecule detector onboard.
"If you get 20 amino acids, all with the same chirality, that would be, I think, compelling," said astrobiologist Chris McKay.
